


Color Me Surprised

by unadrift



Series: SGA Season Five Tags [12]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, Episode Related, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unadrift/pseuds/unadrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh my god," Rodney said. "This <i>is</i> Barbie World."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Color Me Surprised

**Author's Note:**

> AU-tag for _Outsiders_, beta'd by singletailwhip.

Rematerialization was every bit as disorienting as it had been the last time, and the familiar weight of a gun in Rodney's hand wasn't reassuring in the slightest. It should have been, after more than four years of constantly running from (and sometimes heading straight towards) mortal danger.

The fact that Rodney didn't recognize the planet he had rematerialized on didn't help. Rodney would be the first to admit that his memory wasn't good with details of minor importance, but he certainly would have remembered a place where the trees were purple with pink leaves.

"Oh," said someone next to him.

Rodney barely had time to recognize Carson's voice over the shrieking sound of Wraith darts above them, then he was pushed unceremoniously into a bush and out of the way of a Wraith dematerialization beam.

"That was close," Carson said, sitting up next to him, purple twigs and pink leaves in his hair.

While it didn't exactly make Rodney's day, Carson's presence was one little less dark spot in this not very encouraging situation so far. They were alive, their atoms had been pieced back together correctly, with only the minor drawback that the stupid Wraith had done so _on the wrong planet_ and _in the middle of a goddamn culling_, thank you very much.

So Rodney would rather have Sheppard there with him, carrying one of those big guns of his. Preferably the one he had a special relationship with, the one Sheppard stroked fondly when he thought no one was looking.

Teyla would have worked fine as a bodyguard, too. Teyla was the Xena of Rodney's dreams, even without a deadly weapon at hand or the sexy leather outfit. Not that he would ever tell her that, especially the part about the outfit.

Hell, Rodney would have preferred to have _Ronon_ with him. Ronon had big muscles, and whenever he didn't scare the hell out of Rodney, he scared the bad guys even more. Plus, his grudge against the Wraith made the Joker look like a kindergarten teacher – and Rodney did not make this comparison lightly.

But Rodney had gotten Carson, who of _course_ trampled on Rodney's hand when he moved to peek out of the bushes. "Rodney, where are we? This doesn't look like--"

"I _know_," Rodney hissed, rubbing his fingers. "We're not in Kansas anymore."

"But you said that they would launch the darts and we'd be rematerialized on the planet!" Carson's eyes were wide when he turned to stare at Rodney accusingly.

Suppressing the urge to yell, and then successfully not panicking at the sound of more darts approaching (Rodney refused to be the first to break) he gritted out through clenched teeth, "I also said that it was a _long shot_!"  
"But usually when you say that it's a long shot--"

"Yes! Yes. Usually, things work out well. I am a genius, after all," Rodney said. "You just happen to have had the misfortune of being around the one time my plan didn't work out." Moving as slowly and carefully as he could manage, which Sheppard would probably not deem sufficient at all, Rodney rose to peek over the top of the bushes. He scanned the clearing in front of them and the woods behind them for Wraith and continued in a whisper, "While this event is certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience to tell your grandchildren about--"

"-- if I value my life, I won't," Carson finished. Rodney didn't see the accompanying eye-roll, but he could hear it loud and clear.

"Exactly." The darts were gone and everything was deathly quiet around them. There were no other threats in sight and after a few minutes of mostly silent observation, Rodney figured he could throw caution in the wind. He stood, holstered his gun, and started walking, gesturing for Carson to follow. "Come on. If we find the gate I can get us back to Atlantis."

"Hey!" Carson said. "How do you even know that this is the right way? You have no idea where we are! For that matter, how do you know the stargate isn't in space?"

Not bothering to turn around, Rodney called back, "The darts took off in this direction rather than into space, so this is the way to go. And anyway, what do _you_ want to do? Sit around and wait for someone to find us? That could take a while. Good luck."

The undergrowth rustled as Carson tried to catch up with him. "If you get us lost, I am not speaking to you again."  
Rodney was tempted to point out the bright side of that outcome, but in light of their situation didn't think it wise. "If we get lost here – not that this is going to happen – but _if_ we get lost, I will be the only one around you _can_ talk to," Rodney retorted. "Or do you see anyone else?" In passing, he plucked a pink leaf from a bush and made a face. "Except maybe for the occasional cerulean squirrel or red and white polka-dotted moose or something." He paused, gripped by the sheer terror of a new possibility. "Er, Carson? Do you think that there might be predators around? Big predators? The kind that could eat, you know, me?"

They exchanged a glance and stopped dead in their tracks, looking around. "I'm no biologist," Carson said, and Rodney was torn between congratulating him on the fact and still feeling sorry for him and his medical profession. "But since you ask," Carson went on nervously, "aye, it is likely that there is an animal out there big enough to do us harm. There could be wee poisonous ones around as well."

Great, Rodney hadn't even thought of poisonous snakes, spiders, and scorpions before. He closed his eyes and cursed fate, just like he usually did when things promised to turn nasty and he could spare a moment. Except this time he opened them again, quickly. Because the images his mind conjured up in the pitch black behind closed eye lids were much more unpleasant than _anything_ he could manage to imagine at the sight of a pink forest bathed in idyllic sunlight. He kept expecting to see happily singing Care Bears appear from behind the next bush, or trip over the mushroom house of a smurf, or find a herd of unicorns grazing on the next clearing. Or-- wait.

"Hey, are unicorns gregarious animals?"

Carson frowned. "Rodney, did you hit your head before? Do you have a headache? Blurry vision? Are you feeling dizzy?"  
Rodney batted Carson's hand away from his head. "I'm fine. Just-- Forget I said anything." He stomped off into the woods. Carson followed close on his heel. "If you did take a blow to the head I need to have a look. A concussion is no picnic! Wait, who am I telling this? Rodney, you know how this can--"

His head was just fine, Rodney had not been hit anywhere. Carson was just distracting himself. Usually, Rodney appreciated people expressing concerns regarding his health and safety. But, really, was this how other people felt around Rodney when _he_ was nervous and talkative? It was _annoying_. Seriously annoying.

"-- and if you're starting to feel sick you have to tell me. Of course you'll tell me, you're--"

They almost collided when Rodney stopped and turned to Carson. "Do you _want_ to attract predators?" he hissed, and huh, this was very much something John might have said to Rodney under similar circumstances.

At least Carson looked reasonably rattled and shut up about Rodney's supposed injury for a few minutes.

Half an hour into their walk, Rodney secretly broke out the one power bar he still had stashed away in his vest. It occurred to him that they might be hours, maybe _days_, away from the gate, and that the direction the darts had given him included a rather large margin of error. He started calculating the distance by which they could miss the gate at a given point in time into their journey, at a given hiking speed, and with just a one degree deviation from the right direction. So far, the results didn't look promising. They could easily miss the gate by a mile. Literally.

But at least the undergrowth was starting to thin, and the trees were growing a lot taller. Walking was easier and produced no more than a low rustle in the leaves on the ground, which was reassuring. Carson had made a lot of noise before, wading through the undergrowth like that. Rodney was surprised that the bears hadn't come out to eat them, cute and pastel-colored or not.

"Er," Carson spoke up, just as Rodney had stealthily swallowed the last bite of the power bar, "why have we been assuming that this planet is uninhabited?"

"We haven't," Rodney said. Carson just looked at him. "What? You have?" Rodney asked, incredulous. "The Wraith wouldn't cull an uninhabited world. That's a contradiction in terms!"

"Right," Carson said. "It's just so--" He gestured at their surroundings. "--quiet. And I had other things on my mind, like your _head injury_. I didn't exactly think about-- Never mind."

"I do not have a head injury. I'm perfectly fine," Rodney repeated, so that Carson would finally get it.

"Okay. If you say so," Carson said indulgently. "Why don't we go look for the local people now? They could point us towards the gate, maybe provide us with food and water."

"Or they could poke a spear through us and roast us over a fire. We don't know!" Rodney said, rolling his eyes. No wonder Carson had never been able to secure himself a spot on an off-world team. Okay, so Carson had never _wanted to be_ on an off-world team, but that was beside the point. "We're better off on our own. Besides, we don't have a way to find them. Planets are big, you know."

"Thank you, Rodney. I do know," Carson retorted. "Don't be so negative. We've met more friendly people than hostile ones. And as for finding them, how about we just follow this path?" he suggested cheerfully and led the way.

* * *

They found the village an hour later. It was pink.

The houses were wooden, and the natural color of the wood seemed to be pink. That shouldn't have come as such a surprise, because, hello, purple trees? But still! _Pink!_

"Oh my god," Rodney said. "This _is_ Barbie world."

"You have to admit, the color makes for an excellent camouflage around here," Carson said brightly.

A number of people watched with curious expressions from the doorsteps of their houses and from windows while Rodney and Carson were making their way towards the center of the village. Two men approached with smiles on their faces and met them halfway. Come to think of it, the entire village, including its inhabitants, looked surprisingly undisturbed, in every sense of the word.

"Greetings, strangers." The middle-aged blonde man in dark blue robes bowed slightly before them.

"Yes, yes," Rodney said. "Look, weren't you just culled by the Wraith?"

Carson took a step forward and offered his hand to the leader, inviting everyone to ignore Rodney completely. "Greetings to you too." They managed an improvised handshake. "I'm Carson Beckett, and this is Rodney McKay."

The man nodded, still smiling. "I am Gregory and this is Arthur. We speak on behalf of the village of Springfield."

Oh-kay. Rodney had expected something along the lines of-- He didn't know what he had expected, but it definitely wasn't perfectly common, _boring_ English names, and certainly not the one that was pulled straight from _The Simpsons_.

Arnold, who was clad in brown robes, bowed as well. "Greetings. We are happy to welcome travelers with us. Did you come from beyond the Captured Sea?"

"The-- what? Oh, yes," Rodney said. Local folk. They were just so funny. "We came from-- there."

"We would like to return home," Carson added. "Would you be so kind as to point us towards the 'captured sea'?"

"Oh, but you cannot leave now," George protested. "We are just about to prepare the evening feast. It is going to be dark soon, and the way to the Captured Sea is a long one. You mustn't travel it in the dark."

"Of course," Rodney muttered. But it looked like they were going to get a meal out of this, which was certainly a bright side.

The food wasn't exactly delicious, but it was plentiful. The water tasted fresh, the fire was warm against Rodney's back, the seat was adequately comfortable, and everyone was just cheerful and good-natured and generally so sweet that it almost made Rodney's teeth hurt.

When Rodney was entirely too full to even consider eating another one of those banana-like things, he remembered. Leaning across the table towards George, he asked, "Haven't you been culled by the Wraith just this afternoon?"

George-- well, smiled. Again. Or maybe still. It was hard to tell. "Praise the Gods, we were not," he said.

Next to him, Arthur nodded seriously. "The Wraith did not find us."

"Oh, don't tell me." Rodney held up a hand and made a pause for effect. "You went to hide in the caves?"

"Yes!" George confirmed.

Arthur looked pleased. "It always works."

"Since it's such a highly unique approach," Rodney dead-panned. How were these people still alive? "You know, George, I've never heard of a plan more cunning than this one bef-- Ow!" Carson's elbow connected rather painfully with Rodney's ribs and knocked the wind out of him.

"It's nothing short of a miracle that you haven't been discovered by the Wraith," Carson said. Well, yes, Rodndey thought, he could say that again. With a pointed glance at Rodney Carson added, "Gregory."

Right, so the name was _Gregory_. Seriously, who cared?

George leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, "The caves are hidden."

"Oh, you were hiding in _hidden_ caves," Rodney said with all the sarcasm he could muster. "That must have done the trick, then."

Carson stomped on Rodney's foot under the table this time. "Well done," he said and reached across the table to pat Arnold's arm, smiling. Arnold smiled back, all teeth.

Rodney grimaced and made a mental note to whack Carson up the head later. Hard. "Carson!" he hissed under his breath. "Aren't you the slightest bit curious how these people have dodged the Wraith? Hiding in caves, my ass!"

"Of course I'm curious," Carson whispered back, all the while smiling innocently at their hosts. "But there's no need to be rude about it."

Rodney manfully resisted the urge to bang his head on the table. If he had a scanner with him he could confirm his suspicion, namely that something in this place was disturbing Wraith sensors. He would bet his entire _Doctor Who_ DVD collection that the effect was connected to the creative use of color that Mother Nature had felt the need to express herself with around here. Okay, maybe Rodney was taking things a bit too far with the _Doctor Who_ collection thing, but the hypothesis was worth his _Farscape_ DVDs at least, if only the ones he also had saved as avi files.

"Why do you look troubled?" George interrupted him, confused. He took Arnold's hand in his. "Aren't we all well and truly blessed?"

George and Arnold gazed deeply into each others' eyes, and really, the trees should have given this planet away from the beginning.

"Um, Rodney?" Carson said, sounding just a little bit uneasy now.

"Yes, what?" he snapped, purely on principle, because he had seen it already. Almost everyone was paired up around them, and Rodney didn't spot a single mixed couple. The anthropologists would have a field day with this one, even more so because everyone was starting to get kind of friendly now, too. Rodney's eyes stayed a little too long on the two women kissing intently one table over, and damn, this was having more of an effect on him than he would have liked at the moment. He needed his blood circulating in his _brain_.

"Maybe there is something in the smoke?" Carson sniffed the air, then the water in his cup.

"Huh?" Rodney's attention was rudely diverted to Carson again. "We've all been breathing the same air here. If you're not feeling the sudden urge to jump my bones--"

"No," Carson interrupted him hastily. "No more than usual."

Rodney frowned suspiciously and tried hard to ignore the kissing sounds from across the table. "I am reassured, right?"

"Maybe they are all just really horny?" Carson suggested unhelpfully, his eyes now glued to the couple Rodney had been watching earlier.

"Or maybe something around here possesses aphrodisiac qualities only after long term exposure?" Rodney said, making it sound like a question.

"Could be," Carson said absentmindedly.

A young man stepped into their line of vision. His eyes were fixed on Carson while he was striding towards them purposefully.

"Taken!" Carson yelped when the man reached their table. "I'm taken!" Carson ended up practically sitting in Rodney's lap, with his vice-like grip hurting Rodney's arm.

The man shrugged, looking vaguely disappointed, and headed off toward someone else on the other side of the fire.

"Ow! What are you doing?" Even a forceful shove didn't loosen Carson's attachment to his arm. "Get off me!"

"Rodney! I don't want to be dragged off for a snog by any of these lads!" Carson sounded awfully close to begging. "I'm sure Colonel Sheppard wouldn't mind. It should be enough if we just sit here and cuddle."

That was it. There had to be something psychotropic floating in the air. "'Snog'?" Rodney repeated. "_Cuddle?_"

Back in his first year in Atlantis, a week before their certain death-by-Wraith, Rodney had made a list of things he wished he could do before he died, or, you know, do to _not die_. It wasn't as long a list as you would think, only eighty-three points in total. About half of those were science-related and involved super anti-Wraith weapons, the Grand Unified Theory, the Nobel prize, and Samantha Carter in various combinations. Then there were food-related things, and the kinky scenarios with hot blonde girls in general, not to forget the stuff that involved both blonde girls _and_ food.

But cuddling with Carson Beckett was nowhere on that list. In fact, if Rodney were to make a list of the things he really _didn't_ want to do, this would range somewhere among the top one hundred.

Also-- Rodney replayed that last part of the conversation in his mind. "What does this have to do with Sheppard?"

Carson gave him an exasperated look. "Even if the colonel is the jealous type, this is an emergency situation. I'm sure he'll understand! Especially since this will also save _you_ from a make-out session with one of these blokes."

"Excuse me, what?" Maybe the drugs in the air were making Carson loopy, or maybe they were messing with Rodney's head, because he had no idea what Carson was talking about.

"Rodney," Carson said reasonably and scooted closer still. "I understand your need for secrecy, but you can count on my discretion."

"Seriously, Carson! What the hell are you talking about?"

"You and Colonel Sheppard?"

"Me and Colonel Sheppard-- what?"

"Oh, don't tell me," Carson sighed. "You still haven't-- The poor lad has been waiting for you for _years_ and you still haven't done anything? Rodney. Even you cannot be that oblivious."

"Wait, I-- Oblivious? Me?"

"Aye," Carson said, putting an arm around Rodney's waist and placing his head on Rodney's shoulder. It was a shame that Rodney was too preoccupied to shove him away and off the bench. In his usually extremely capable mind he was trying to connect the dots of 'John' and 'waiting' and 'years' and 'Rodney' to a picture that somehow made sense. He came up empty.

He kept thinking about it, staring into space, while Carson was clinging to him for the rest of the evening. At some point Arnold disentangled himself from George's arms and resurfaced long enough to say, "If privacy is an issue for the two of you, you can retreat to the room we prepared for you."

"Great," Rodney said distractedly. People were starting to either vanish or get naked, and things promised to turn _really_ awkward for them soon. "We'll do that. Er, thanks. Arnold."

"Arthur," Carson corrected and added, "We are very private people."

"Yes, yes," Rodney said, because the guys were kissing again already. He dragged Carson along towards the house that they had been pointed to.

Carson went to sleep in the double bed. "Goodnight, Rodney," he wished. After a moment of silence he added, "You really should just jump his bones already. It's getting ridiculous."

"Oh, thank you for the advice, Doctor Love. You can go to sleep now." Rodney sat down on the chair by the window and thought. He hadn't been thinking this much about anything that wasn't connected to science since-- since-- ever, really. He couldn't remember.

As much as he tried to wrap his mind around the idea, Rodney didn't truly _get it_ until they stepped through the gate and back into Atlantis the next morning. One moment George and Arthur were waving them goodbye, standing arm in arm next to the DHD, smiling, and the next John was leaping down the stairs towards them from the command level, taking two steps at a time. Just when it looked like he wasn't going to stop, like he was preserving the momentum to pull Rodney into a hug, John slowed down and did stop right in front of him.

"Rodney," he said, looking stunned and disbelieving and something else Rodney couldn't quite put his finger on. "You're alive. How did you--? Where the hell have you been?"

Oh, damn. Rodney had completely forgotten. How could he have forgotten about this? "How long?"

"Thirteen days," John said. "You were gone thirteen days. We thought we'd lost you."

"We've been stored in a Wraith data buffer for twelve days?" Carson asked. "That is fascinating." He frowned. "And eerily familiar."

"Rodney?" John asked, but then Woolsey arrived and started questioning them, and Keller rushed into the gateroom to drag them away to the infirmary.

Anyway, Rodney still hadn't figured it all out. He had just gathered the final data.

* * *

"So," Rodney said, standing in front of John's bed.

"So-- what?" John squinted up at him sleepily against the bright light. "Did you go AWOL from the infirmary?"

It occurred to Rodney that four thirty possibly wasn't the most suitable time to have this conversation with John. Well, it would have been, if John had been on night shift. Then again, he would be on duty if he was on night shift, so this wouldn't be a good time under any circumstances. Except maybe if--

"Rodney?" John was already swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "What's the emergency?"

"Ah, no emergency, not as such," Rodney said, shifting from one foot to the other nervously. "It's been brought to my attention that you've been pining for me for a while now."

John blinked. "What?"

"Pining," Rodney repeated, gesturing between them. "You. For me. I understand that it's been going on for years."

John blinked again. Once, twice, three times, and then he was up and in Rodney's face, and his hands clamped down hard on Rodney's shoulders, and there was suddenly a wall against Rodney's back, and John looked really sort of positively murderous up close like this. "Who the hell gave you the idea that I--"

With John's breath hot on Rodney's face and John's eyes on fire, who could blame Rodney for being kind of turned on?

"Pining? Me?" John repeated, his voice part disbelief, part anger. "For _you_? I do not pine!"

"Yes, for me. You can drop whatever pretense you've been keeping up. I might have been a bit slow, but I get it now. And relax, will you? Apparently it's been all over the base for ages anyway." Rodney's hands came to rest on John's waist, where his t-shirt had ridden up a little. Warmth was seeping into Rodney's palms from the soft skin underneath, and it seemed to flow with the single purpose of pooling pleasantly in his belly. "While I'm not usually wired that way I'm willing to give this thing a shot, so to speak. Perfectly willing. Eager, even. Er. Since you're, you know, you, and I'm--"

"Wait, wait, what? All over the base?" John asked, flushed and frowning. He was a little slow on the uptake today, maybe due to lack of sleep. "And that is supposed to reassure me _how_? Rodney, I swear, if you don't start making sense in the next _ten seconds_\--"

"Ah, um, I just--" With John close, so intensely radiating heat in both the physical and metaphorical sense, it was increasingly difficult for Rodney to keep track of the conversation. "Sense is overrated. Really. Just don't stop."  
"Stop what?" John asked, sounding angry and genuinely confused at the same time.

"That thing you're doing with your hips, of course." Given the weird state of mind John was in, Rodney had trouble deciding whether sliding his hands down to John's ass and pulling him in further would freak John out and make him stop, or whether it might have the opposite effect.

And then John did stop. Just froze, with his hips still pressed close.

"Oh," he said.

_Yes,_ Rodney wanted to say, _you're hard, I can feel it, no need to pretend anymore, and why the hell should you? I'm here, let's go for it._

"I really never see this coming," John said.

Rodney fully intended to laugh out loud, because, yeah, right, _years of pining_?

Except that _John_ laughed, a small, pleasant sound, and let his head fall forward onto Rodney's shoulder. It gave Rodney the perfect opportunity to bury his nose in John's neck, smell him (so, so good), kiss the spot behind his ear experimentally, and feel him shiver.

"I have no idea what I'm doing here," Rodney said, and he did slide his hands down to John's ass then, "but I've always been a quick study, and I just know-- This is going to be so good."

John sniggered against his shoulder. "Between you, me, and your ego, I'm confident the three of us are going to figure it out."

"Hey," Rodney said, but the protest died a quick death when John kissed him, deeply, for real, and wow, yeah, talk about _perfect_ and life-altering and earth-shattering and any other movie based cliché that could possibly apply.

* * *

In the morning it took John fifteen minutes in front of the bathroom mirror to arrange his hair so that it looked randomly tousled. Rodney watched with his arms crossed. It said a lot about Rodney's observational skills that he hadn't seen this sooner. "You would have liked Barbie World," he said when John finally turned to him. "It's almost as gay as you are."

And this was how Rodney's clothes ended up in a soaking wet heap in John's shower, and Rodney ended up in John's bed again. So he had to borrow sweatpants and t-shirt to walk back to his quarters later, but all in all, Rodney thought it had been worth it.


End file.
